Ellen Murphy had a pithy and very tongue in cheek letter turned down by the Herald. She penned a comment on Ralph Schwartz’s June 27 blog post at the Bellingham Herald website, titled “Craig Cole’s legal threat against Whatcom Watch ‘resolved’”. Resolved? After the Herald did not report on this story for months, it then grandly proclaimed it “resolved”. When Ellen submitted a letter about this, Herald editor Julie Shirley replied she was not printing the letter, stating, “No, I’m not planning to run it. It doesn’t make sense to anybody who wasn’t following along on the blog post.” Which makes sense, in a narrow sense. But it suggests that the Herald does not consider the blog posts part of the real Herald. Of course, the Herald also removes comments to blog posts - for unknown reasons.

Ellen Murphy writes:

“I hear everything’s resolved now, in the Craig Cole lawsuit threat to Whatcom Watch, and the resolution is based upon a civilized conversation. Cool! Nobody’s still hurting; nothing’s still shaken and trying to get back together; nobody’s still focusing on an excellent sentence that was removed purely as a gesture toward closure; everybody’s focused instead on the real and well-sourced facts in the “What Would Corporations Do? Native American Rights and the Gateway Pacific Terminal” article in the January Whatcom Watch; people who were probably actually libeled have received justice; nobody poor is still paying off related bills; anybody who lost work or friends is back on track; no one whose health was affected is still recovering; everybody who found themselves hesitating just the tiniest nanosecond before typing the word they wanted now types freely again; and the ghost of Edward Bernays rides high upon his horse across the sky from the Powder River ancient Lakota hunting ground, to the sacred Coast Salish land and fishing grounds at Cherry Point. It’s all good. Thanks, Craig!”

- John Servais